Champagne Head
by Utterby
Summary: Andy does it for Miranda, but when she goes too far will Miranda realize why? Written in present-tense from Andy's POV.
1. Chapter 1

Pairing: Miranda/Andrea  
Rating: M

This is my first fan-fic, posted originally on Livejournal. Since posting on Livejournal I have (I hope) made improvements. I am posting the updated chapters here, as and when I feel they're good enough. If you have read the original version, the theme/plot is generally the same, but the final chapter is likely to alter and I will probably be adding further chapters too.

I own nothing. I am gratefully borrowing the characters and the story and doing this for fun.

All mistakes are mine. I hope you enjoy reading and would be grateful for your comments if you have the time.

* * *

This is all Stephen's fault.

Emily has been sent on another wild goose-chase to locate Miranda's wayward husband, the last I saw he was cocking his head at a black-haired green-eyed little thing from catering, trying to catch her eye over the platter of bite sized bagels she had balanced in her hand.

That is why, at present, I am standing behind the most perfect body in the universe all by myself. Of course nobody is looking at me, and that means there is nothing at all to prevent me from staring long and hard at the ridiculous curve of my boss' backside shift up and down in time with her impatience. Everybody thinks she is cold, they call her Snow Queen, but her gently rolling hips are anything but frosty. They are scorching hot. Anyone who cannot see that is an idiot, and I tell them so in my head all of the time.

Her ass, I cannot begin to adequately describe it. Her ass is a wonder, and here it is right in front of me like some kind of mirage. She is the answer to my desire, the hare to my greyhound, the carrot to my donkey, the flame to my moth. You get the idea. Miranda is all I see.

It will be all over soon though, once Emily comes strutting back with Stephen dutifully in tow, and then there will be no more ogling. We have been standing here for long enough. Soon she will begin twitching her shoulder, signalling that it is time to leave. I give us another six minutes. Six minutes for me to burn this image to my retina.

I have calculated that even without moving my feet at all, if I reach out with my free hand I could trace my fingertips over the taught curve starting at her lower back, dip my fingers in between her cheeks (as she stands the fabric of her Valentino dress hints at the dip before concealing it, both for modesty and no doubt to make me absolutely crazy with want. Not that she'd care what I think, but you know what I mean).

I have studied her backside for the past four minutes, and I am pretty confident that she is not wearing panties. Still I keep running my eyes over her ass just to make sure, because of course Miranda is far too proper to go panty-less, isn't she? But no, there is absolutely, definitely no panty-line here. I wonder if that's for Stephen's benefit. Then I stop wondering. The worthless little...

I can't usually get so consumed by her at these sorts of events because usually Emily is standing next to me. With Emily beside me, I only allow myself quick glances up, across and down, up, across and down. Accidental and casual, not at all obvious. It only offers a sort of champagne clouded memory of her body, with Emily beside me.

But right now, Emily is not here. Without Emily, I get stuck. Stuck fast on her wonderful body, how it moves and how it looks. I see her skin (she allows her body to be more exposed at these events than she does in the office).

I see how her flesh bulges slightly at her upper back before it is restrained by the thick material; How it is forced, quite un-Miranda-like, into shape, nipped and tucked, tight and firm, just beautiful.

The shoulders of an angel, void of any blemish but for the single freckle that kisses her neck just below her left ear. I've never noticed it before, and it steals my attention from her ass.

I see the real Miranda, proud, dangerous and vibrant, now with a freckle. I wonder what kind of noise she would make if I kissed it. She is a firework. She makes me dizzy with the desire to taste her and have her in anyway at all.

Suddenly I feel an intense need to sit down.

I feel my fingers twitch against the champagne flute in my hand so that I almost lose my grip, but I don't. I imagine the glass slicing through my grasp, shooting straight down to the floor in the tangible space between us. I imagine the liquid ricocheting back up in the air at angles, splattering on the hem of her dress, wetting it with my ineptitude.

I think of her shoulders bristling at the noise and then of her neck muscles twisting so that I may see her chin, her nose, her cheek, turn back towards me.

She looks at the disaster on the floor, flicks her hand over her backside to check for damp (I automatically follow that hand with my eyes). I swallow what I am certain are shards of glass but is merely air, then she flicks her eyes at mine, and I am gone.

My knees, my legs, they seem to disappear with her look. I expect her fury, a tightening of her mouth, and I fear the roll of her eyes, as if to say, 'you are so incompetent'. But I get something else entirely.

She frowns. Miranda never frowns. She is never seen to be out of control or confused, at least not in public. Not like this.

I don't understand what is happening. Her eyes keep me standing in silver shackles, but then she seems to gain inches in height, like a cobra ready to attack, and then she strikes in the most unexpected and frightening way.

Her shoulders are up, her free hand whips out and strikes my wrist, the wrist that had been holding a champagne flute, the champagne flute that is now in a million pieces on the floor.

My feet are wet.

This is not my imagination.

My heart begs to be freed and I lose my breath at her touch, which hurts, but I will take any sort of contact from her, pain or no. I dream of it. Her hand burns me and I break our eye contact to stare at the obtrusion against my wrist, not believing what I am seeing.

With eye contact gone the silver shackles are broken and I'm spinning down again towards the floor and I hope against hope that it never ends.

Her grip tightens on my wrist which she holds high up above my head, though when I look up, it is barely above the height of her shoulder. I don't understand how it feels so high when she is barely stretching. I silently beg for her to let me fall, but she tugs at me and her upper lip tightens at the effort, the spasm is reflected in the pulsing at her neck which is mirrored in my gut.

"No Andrea," I hear somebody say. It sounds like Miranda, but I didn't see her mouth move. The room is a kaleidoscope of colour and nonsensical pattern that mixes with the cool tones of a beautiful voice.

Miranda's head spins and I feel what can only be Champagne splatter my skin, and all I can presume now is that I have just made Miranda Priestly spill her own champagne. I feel sick.

"Don't you dare," demands the voice.

She is furious. I try to apologise but my stomach seems to be strangling its self and so I try to breathe but I can't seem to get a breath either. I have forgotten how to breathe. Her hand is still on my wrist. It's tight and endless.

Here it is. Miranda Priestley is going to kill me right here, in front of all of these people, in her dress that hangs just so, without her knowing that I am in love with her.

The space goes black but the voice continues at intervals, seeming louder and fuzzier as the seconds pass through me, and then I feel a solid warmth on my front and around my waist, cradling me like a baby. It feels like home.

A hand tightens further on my wrist. I fall into the darkness.

– –

"Come on, there we go," I hear through the black. "Can we get a glass of water over here pronto?"

"Oh my fucking God. The... selfish, selfish little thing. Oh my god. God. For God's sake. She will kill us both. Oh fuck. Fuck. God. She is going to _kill _me. She _is _going to kill me."

I can feel something warm on my cheek and I lean into it because it feels good, but someone said something about water. Does Miranda need water? I try to speak but right now I have to focus on my breathing, and the warm on my cheek is so nice, just give me a second and I'll go get water.

"All-right tiger calm it. Come on Six," the warmth jostles at my cheek and I don't want to open my eyes, I don't want to know where I am or what has happened to me, and why Emily appears to be here too. Why wasn't she there when I needed her, before I got lost inside my head and fainted. Typical.

I just want to lean further into the warmth and forget it all. I want to lean into it with Miranda, against the fabric of her dress, to press my nose and my mouth against the concavity of her side. I manage a clarifying inhale, only I can no longer detect her scent, she is not here, and the warmth belongs to somebody else.

"No," I hear myself gurgle and the pressure on my cheek is removed briefly before it is replaced with a slightly effeminate but nevertheless very forceful slap. I open my eyes and peer right into the beady eyes of Nigel. I shut my eyes again.

"Come back to us, come on Six. Pull it together, think of the chowder. Think of the chowder. There ya go."

I think of the chowder and my stomach growls so loudly that I am embarrassed on its behalf and my eyes open again in shock. Nigel turns away and then turns back and thrusts a glass of water in my face. I drink because it is what you are supposed to do when unexplained and unpleasant things happen to you, and I feel it swishing in my empty stomach, making me more nauseous. Oh, the water was for me? Wait...

"What the hell happened? Where is Miranda? Am I fired? Am I fired?!" I panic in a voice that seems far away, but Nigel hears me.

"You fell flat on your size six ass, with her husband, and I very much doubt it," Nigel replies, but I have already forgotten all of my questions and all I can think of is Miranda and that look she gave me just before everything went black.

I look at my wrist but her hand is gone. There is not even a mark to show for it. I wanted her to mark me, for proof, but there is nothing. When my eyes are not so fuzzy and the light is better I will check again, but for now I rub my wrist and Nigel places his hand over mine to stop me. His touch is a grave compared with Miranda's.

I stand before I realise I have done it, and it takes a few seconds for the room to catch up with my head, but when it does I begin to walk (okay stumble) forward.

"What the hell are you playing at Andrea? You will get us both sacked for Christ's sake."

I don't see Emily but I definitely hear her behind me somewhere, only I don't have time to look, I must find Miranda and get back to my place.

"Andrea get the hell back here," Emily spits.

"Baby doll, Miranda gave you very specific instructions to stay exactly here, where she put you whilst you were dead to the word, and I suggest you obey her command if you want to keep yourself in Chanel for the foreseeable future."

"Miranda what?" I babble. Nigel's hand is still on me, pulling me back.

"Told you to glue your size six ass right here. On this seat. Or as she put it, 'She will not move from this seat Nigel,' " he says, patting the seat I was sitting on a moment ago.

I turn around then to look at Emily who appears equally as nauseous as me, and back at Nigel, and decide he is telling the truth for no other reason than I'm too exhausted to argue. As I heave myself back down, Nigel swans frantically away back into the room I should be in and Emily comes around to take his place in font of me.

"Andrea-bloody-Sachs what the bloody hell have you done?" Emily presses the tips of her forefingers into the corner of each eye. "Don't tell me you have done what I think you have. If you have done what I think you have then God help us. God help me."

"Maybe."

"Oh. Oh my god!" Her eyelashes flutter, she attempts an eye roll and I suddenly no longer fear the same look from Miranda. No one can do it like her. I feel like telling Emily, but I don't.

"It seemed to work for you." It's even more pathetic out loud than it was in my head when I decided it would be a good thing to try, which is saying something.

"Bloody hell Andrea I wasn't actually being serious! For Christ's sake," She takes a deep breath and I do the same, "How long?"

"I don't know."

"How long, Andrea?"

I know the answer, it's blinking in fluorescent lights right in front of my eyes, but it seems that I just make her more angry the more I say, so I shrug my shoulders.

"You cannot tell Miranda about this do you understand? We will both be out of a job." Her whispered voice is frantic and aggressive.

"OK." I nod and hope she knows what she is right. I don't want to be out of a job. I want to be very much in.

– –

Nigel is back, whispering with Emily like a school girl. Emily has her hands on her hips. I would laugh if I was not so tired. Nigel raises his eyebrows in a carefully considered manner and scuttles away again.

I avoid eye contact with Emily.

I think I might be sick, but nothing happens when I retch, except that Emily takes a step away. Good. I'm going to blame it on her perfume.

Nigel is back sooner than I expected and his eyes are watery and his voice shakes when he says, "You're coming with me Six."

I go with him. What else can I do?

I walk on wobbly feet (I could blame it on the 5 inch Jimmy Choo's, but I've been practicing in the hallway whilst waiting for the Book for weeks and I am quite good at it now, even Serena tells me so). Apparently I am not quick enough because Nigel hoists me towards him, links my arm and trudges me out the door.

Before I know what is happening I am placed limb by limb, like a clothes dryer, into a waiting car.

I panic; surely they wouldn't knock me off like this? I am out of my depth, confused, hungry, tired, everything is a blur. Am I really going to...?

"Right lady, you stay here," Nigel peers in at me from the open door and then he flicks his eyes to the driver, "Roy you know what to do."

"He does?"

"Yes Ma'am." Roy nods through the mirror.

"But Miranda told me to stay on that seat," I say in a panic that is all too consuming and I lean toward the door in an attempt to get back to my designated seat.

"Yes," Nigel says it like I am an infant, "and then she said, 'take her to the car,' and, because I value my job very much, I took you to the car, where you will stay and await further instruction from our lady of the night."

I cannot seem to understand what Nigel is saying, to I try a different tack, "Roy? What the hell am I doing in Miranda's car?"

This cannot be good, so it has to be bad.

"Nigel?" I ask but he is already shutting the door on me and quite suddenly I am thrown into a dark, quiet, nicely cool cocoon of leather and that distinctive new-car smell.

"You okay, Andy?" Roy asks.

"Nope."

I clutch onto the leather but my palms are sweaty and I can't get the grip. I consider what has just happened. Not five minutes ago (I think it was five, then again i'm pretty sure I passed out just now so time has sort of gone out the window for me), I was standing behind my beautiful boss, fantasising about fantasies I should not have been, keeping my place, trying to keep up and be a good assistant. Now I am Miranda-less, sitting in her car, when I should be protecting her.

I feel completely hopeless, I have failed, I know it. All I wanted was to be a better person for her. And I messed it up.

I hear the door across from me open and I jump at the sound, it seeming louder than usual. My throat tries to strangle me as I see Miranda slide into the car in one movement, cat-like, perfect, furious. I can see it in her shoulder-blades, the way they are tight together and her shoulders high.

It's not the first time I am reminded of a lioness on the prowl, sharp shoulder blades slicing through the air as it prepares to feast on a helpless, completely unaware, scruffy little creature. Only I am very much aware of her presence. I look out my window before she turns fully towards me because I cannot deal with her disapproval.

Across the way, women in beautiful dresses and men in sharp suits mill outside the building. They mostly look happy, some are laughing, some are touching their partner on the arm or shoulder with forced affection. It reminds me of how Miranda does that to her husband when he is drunk.

I have imagined in unnecessarily graphic detail what it must be like when they have sex. Miranda touching his shoulders as she would a copy of TV Guide whilst his hands are on her bony hips from where they do not venture at all.

Miranda never looks happy at these events, and I know they make her nervous. Sure she smiles and tilts her head in the right way, but her smile is predatory and the tilt of her head a warning.

I feel myself swaying and for a moment I worry that I am passing out again, so I take a loud breath in to try and stay conscious. My trying to stay awake is too noisy though, and Miranda shoots her head around to look at me, and that is when I notice the street lights fluttering over her face and I realise the swaying motion is not me but the car, travelling to destination I should know, being Miranda's assistant, but I do not.

Her brow has a tiny, almost imperceptible frown. She would be furious if she knew that I could see it. Miranda hates to frown. She doesn't even frown when she suspects Freesias in her vicinity, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't strangle any florist with their very stems if she found one amongst the bouquets.

Not that she'd actually look for them. She'd get me to do that.

Her lips purse in the way that means she wants to say something, and is currently formulating the most eloquent and vicious sentence of which to shoot me down with and all I can do is stare back.

It's a lot like looking down the barrel of a gun. Then she inhales through her nose, and I hold my breath.

"I do not need to tell you there are many traits that I despise in a person," she begins. I sit on my hands. "One of which is cowardice. An inability to think for oneself and instead to mindlessly follow others in their quest for what they wrongly believe to be perfection."

"Miranda," I am stupid to interrupt her and I bite my tongue as she glares at me.

"I do not doubt your intentions were honourable, though I hope you realise how much you have disappointed me," Oh my God, she sounds _upset_. "More than that, you have disappointed yourself. I would hope."

"Miranda," I've done it again. I consider throwing myself out of the moving car right now, but the doors lock automatically. I still contemplate trying anyway. I mean, what have I got to lose, right? "I didn't want to be the smart, fat girl anymore."

Miranda snorted, "Well I can assure you Andrea you are no longer smart," and after a pause, she looks out the window. "Nor are you fat. Do not ever think that of yourself."

"But you said-"

She whips her head like a lasso, "I am aware of what I said Andrea. Really, if I wanted to hear my words echoed back at me I would have hired a parrot. And you are a woman, are you not?"

"Yes." I try not to make it come out like that turned me on.

"Well then," She says, as if something had been settled.

The journey continues, meandering through more lanes than I knew existed. At the fifth set of traffic lights, she speaks to me again, and I am grateful that she sounds a little calmer than before.

"Do you have adequate supplies in your little flat?"

I feel my cheeks turn pink, "I'm not entirely sure right now," I say.

"Did you somehow spill champagne in your ears as well as on my Valentino when you so selfishly lost consciousness?" She asks and I want to slap myself hard. Miranda does not like cowards. "Do you have food Andrea?"

Not a coward. Not a coward. "No Miranda. Please, I am so sorry."

Miranda stares at Roy through the mirror and Roy nods. Oh God, they're going to lock me in my own apartment and starve me to death. She shakes her head and looks out of her window, so I look out of mine because, whilst I am trying to remember if I actually do have anything in my fridge other than an empty cheese packet, I know I still might be on my way to a back alley where I will be shot at point-blank-range and, if I do escape, I will need to give the Police some directions to where I have been taken. The route looks familiar, but I am a little buzzed from Champagne and a lot buzzed from Miranda touching me earlier on, so it's difficult to say.

"Do you have any of these, these, _cubes _with you?" She asks after a little while and I feel sick as I begin to realise how much she knows about this, and how stupid I am for thinking she wouldn't know.

I don't want to answer her, because I don't want to be a coward and lie, but I also don't want to sit in her car nibbling on a cheese cube in the presence of Miranda Priestly. There is a strictly no-food rule in her car. Not even a Starbucks has seen the interior of this car.

I can hear her rattling through her purse, an unusual sound because Miranda does not look for anything herself. Oh God. I try to imagine what she could possibly need. I am, after all, still her assistant. Even if I wasn't I would do anything to make her life just a little easier. Still, she hasn't fired me yet. I don't think.

Wait, how long was I out for? Did she fire me whilst I was passed out on the floor and expect me to hear every word? Very likely. I would ask, but if I'm not fired yet, I will be if I ask her a goddam question about the status of my employment.

I want to scream when I sense something pale to the right of my head. I already know, as I turn to look, that it is Miranda's hand, and I blush when I realise that it was my purse she was looking through.

Oh wow. Right.

In her hand is a very familiar cube of cheddar cheese.

The sway of the car causes her hand to shudder lightly and the little cube of cheese bobs up and down in front of my mouth. I am thrown back to my childhood where I would spend long summers bobbing for apples. I was the best, not afraid to shove my face right into the water and thrash about until I felt the solid cool sphere of the apple in my grasp. But I am not a child, and Miranda, oh God, Miranda knows I am not a child, so I am completely thrown when she presses the cube lightly against my mouth.

I want to come. I realise in a flood that I am so utterly aroused and equally as petrified of what is happening, of how much I can hide under these conditions.

The cheese I have purchased is cheap, and Miranda's clever fingertips are pressing against the fatty, sweating cube and I bet she is wondering whether she can gain calories by osmosis. I am wondering this also. The thought of me making Miranda put weight on against her will is cause enough for me to open my mouth a fraction.

The cube rotates so one corner of it slips through my lips, to the barrier of my teeth that I forget to open further because my boss' fingertips are barely touching my mouth as she holds it.

I am trying to focus on the cheese, rather than on the cool smooth of Miranda's fingers, and how her neat fingernails are just hinting at drawing blood as they tickle my lip. I realise with surprise that the part where my upper lip becomes skin is wonderfully sensitive, almost to the point of pain, and her fingers are shaking slightly which causes her nails to itch a path straight to my core.

I don't know why, but I steal a glance at her, and her eyes are trained, naturally, to the task in hand. That is, she is staring at the cheese, at her hand, oh, at my mouth. And because she is staring at mine, I stare at hers and my jaw drops a fraction when I see her mouth lightly parted, and when my jaw does drop, her own mouth opens a fraction too and and now...now I can see her wet tongue inside, behind her sharp teeth.

Her tongue twitches when I snake my own out to take the first tentative taste of a cheese I am already very well acquainted with (In answer to Emily's question I have not tasted anything else for nine days), and when I sink my teeth into it, Miranda's teeth bite down also, just a little bit, into air, as I am staring at her mouth I spot it happening.

I groan at Miranda treating me like a child, miming the action like a mother does with a stubborn child, 'here comes the choo choo train,' I hear in my head but then that thought disappears because Miranda is no longer looking at my mouth, she is looking in my eyes as though I have just spat the cheese right onto her Valentino (and I haven't, the tiny bite I have taken is very much present in my mouth).

Whilst I chew methodically, Miranda pulls her hand back slightly, so for the next bite I have to lean toward her a bit and I am beyond embarrassed at this, but I do it anyway because:  
1) I am starving  
2) I've got to do something with the remaining cheese in Miranda's hand  
3) you do not disobey Miranda when she looks at you like that.

I rest my palms on the seat between us, but my fingertips encounter soft velvet where Miranda's dress has spread slightly over the leather. I make the split second decision not to acknowledge it at all. Well, not visually. Psychologically the feeling is more I can manage and the gush in emotion surges my body forward a fraction more, and oh my Lord, Miranda's face is pink and my stomach is churning more than it did when I dropped the flute because, in my panic to try and act nonchalant, I have inadvertently closed my mouth around the tips of Miranda Priestly's fingers.

I don't know what the hell to do. There is a moment of even more awkward embarrassment where I have a chunk of cheese on my tongue, not daring to chew for fear of biting Miranda (though God how I would love to just sink my teeth gently into her...), and saliva is rapidly filling my open mouth. Soon it will be coating her fingertips and I think if that happens I will cry, but before it does Miranda carefully retracts her fingers and oh so very softly rubs the pad of her thumb over my lips. She does the same with her forefinger.

I tentatively react by brushing my lips over them in turn, aiming to rid her fingers of any lingering fat from the cube. I clearly got that wrong though, because before I can register just how cool and perfect it felt, her hand is back in her lap and she is cradling it with the other like it is wounded.

Crap.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for those who have commented and all those following my story.

Please be generous in letting me know what you think.

More to follow.

Enjoy!

* * *

Well, it's safe to say I have definitely gone and done it. Ordinarily I would be grovelling and holding back the tears, but I am so awash with lust and Champagne (and on an empty stomach too), and so for some inexplicable reason I am almost past the point of giving a damn that i've just gone and done it. Instead i'm just sitting and waiting, tick tock goes the clock.

We have been very silent and very still now for three minutes or so, but it feels like longer. I recognised Patricia's groomers a moment ago through the window, so now i'm pretty sure we are currently heading to her town-house. I am not going to think anything into this at all. Nope, you can't make me. I won't think about it becausemy imagination tends to get me worked-up quite spectacularly, and I'm scared in which direction it will take this revelation. Miranda's town-house of all places.

All things considering however, considering what I have done and what I have ruined, Miranda has actually been_nice_to me.

No. Miranda would probably not like that word. _Nice. _

I am fastidious over my choice of words after the time when I was new and I called fashion 'stuff' and she laid into me about the importance of fashion, and went on and on about my sweater, and I got wet in front of her and her staff.

She would not like _nice. _Reasonable. Reticent. Reserved. Aloof. Terrifying.

I wonder what she would have thought back then, if I had actually spoken my mind after her cerulean speech, if I said something like, "oh Miranda that was so fucking hot, I am so hot for you. Please can I be excused I need to go frig myself. I'll get Emily to cover the phones."

Oops. I think I just snorted. Miranda has pretended not to have heard. Should I be glad or scared? I don't know. I decide on glad. I've had enough scared for one night and I'll only take it if there is no alternative. It is good she hasn't snapped at my snort, isn't it? Right?

So, i'm trying to keep my head blank and glad, blank and glad, blank and glad, and Miranda's face is suspiciously blank of emotion, like a statue that has witnessed millions of secret gazes and frantic apologies, but will never betray its strangers' anguish. It just remains silent and knowing and superior. Strong despite it's knowledge of the world.

You know, now that I think about it, it's actually very difficult to try and think of nothing at all.

My thoughts are running so fast through my head i'm getting a headache, and it's not the familiar, pulsing headache from lack of nutrition, but one that is gently scratching at my temples like pins, the kind i've never had before.

I have tablets in my bag, but they will have to stay where they are. I am certainly not making any sudden moves until I know what is expected of me, and I won't ask what is expected of me, because that would be me boring Miranda with my questions, which she also hates.

Blank and glad. Blank and glad. Blank...

Miranda hates a lot of things. She hates cats, Vivaldi, tea and smoked salmon. She hates a lot of other things as well. I think she hates Stephen too, but I'm not supposed to know that.

I am very glad Stephen is not here. I can't stand him. She hadn't said whether he was supposed to be coming home with her this evening (she barely talks about him anymore, tells me it's nothing to do with me. I think I hit a nerve at one point, but i'm not sure when and not sure why). Therefore I don't know if I've boosted him out of his seat or not.

I have a taxi booked in just over half an hour to pick me up from the venue. I envy the person who leaves in it.

Maybe Stephen is still there, picking up the waitress. I'm not worried, if she wanted him here, he would be here.

Huh. He would be here if she wanted him here... I gloat just at the thought of Miranda preferring to ride with me than with her own husband, and find a stupid grin peeling back at me through the glass window of her car.

"Something funny?" Miranda sneers.

Oh God. "N-No Miranda." It's not funny at all. My reflection betrays my horror, it cracks at my face like a sledge-hammer and I wonder whether she can see it. She inhales through her nose.

"So you were just grinning like a school girl because it, what, came naturally to you?" I hear her shift in her seat, patting down her dress. "How do you do it, Andrea?"

I remain rooted to my reflection and see deep black chasms where my eyes should be. "Do what?" I ask, and instantly expect a "bore someone else with your questions," retort and for this particular conversation to be completely over. Please, let it be over.

Imagine explaining to Miranda the reason why I smiled was because I've just realised i'm sitting where her husband is supposed to sit. That would be taking things too far, even by my standards.

I look at her then, because I want to make this better, and I want to be able to read between her lines, but she is looking out of her own window so she doesn't see me try.

"Remain so, so_content _with what you have. Not twenty minutes ago you were unconscious at my feet, you have been practically force-fed in this very car by your extraordinary disappointed employer and now you are grinning at your own reflection. You don't have any idea of where we are heading, or what I plan to do when we get there, but yet you cannot seem to restrain your..." she pauses, swallows so that her Adam's apple slicks up and down her neck. "Yourself. You cannot restrain your happiness. Despite it all."

Now, I am quite sure that had begun as a question to which she may or may not have wanted an answer, and although I have followed her every word, I don't have a clue what she just said, what I am expected to say or do.

Instead I am embarrassingly guilty of focusing far too intently on the part where I was unconscious at her feet, and how she seemed to hone in on how I couldn't restrain myself (actually, now that I think about it, I may have done all the honing in on that one). The rest of her words have fallen away from my head like a chiffon dress, all unrecognisable and flat against the floor. No matter how hard I stare and how much I hope, the flurry of words she has just spoken will never form into a coherent sentence inside my head.

This is a problem that is occurring more and more frequently. It's debatable how much longer I can get away with hiding my distraction.

It happens at work, all of the time, me getting stuck on one little thing she says like _I want more flesh, _or _must I do it all myself, _or _give it to me, _and I take in the most inappropriate direction, forsaking all other words. It spins and twists in my head despite my best intentions, and I do my best to carry on.

But here in the car there is no distraction: no call to answer, no shoes to collect, no coffee to fetch so that she doesn't realise my error. It's just her and me.

I wonder, when I was unconscious at her feet, whether my mouth touched her shoe.

I wonder, if I had been awake, I could have inhaled the organic liquoriceness of the leather, and maybe just a hint of the warm spicy scent I imagine in my head from her spending too many hours on her feet.

"Sorry Miranda," I reply, because whatever she has just said, it was probably an insult. Sorry is my best bet.

"Do not apologise," she bites out the words and I flinch. "This is not about apology. This is about...it's about...this is about the fact that, despite your technical ability in the workplace, to which I have actually become quite accustomed to, don't think I do not appreciate your efforts, but despite that, you appear entirely incapable of taking care of yourself. You seem to forget about yourself, Andrea, and you just do not seem to care at all."

My heart flutters in response. "I do care."

"No. You don't care about your own welfare and the consequences of your actions seem so trivial to you, unimportant and frivolous. That reflects badly. On me. I cannot have you collapsing like a house of cards and disappearing into thin air."

I won't disappear, I will be wherever she is. "I understand. I will do whatever I can to put that right."

Miranda doesn't seem to hear. "Do not think tonight is the first time I have noticed. It is not acceptable nor it is something I ever want to witness again. I saw you hanging onto the office wall on Wednesday after you fetched my coffee, honestly we are not a climbing-frame. Why you thought you could do that unnoticed is beyond me, you are not at all subtle. Do you assume I cannot see at all without my reading glasses? Or did you just think it was acceptable to appear intoxicated at work?"

"I wasn't drunk, I..." I stare at her open-mouthed.

"I know that. I know you wouldn't dare. You were fainting." Miranda huffs and rolls her neck. "You were fainting and Emily had to fetch you water, and while she was gone you stumbled back to your desk and rustled about in your drawer, I had no idea why at the time, but now I know you were probably looking for a tiny crumb of cheese on which to gorge on. But you never managed to find one did you Andrea, because Emily came trotting back before you had the chance and you didn't want her to know what you were doing to yourself. God forbid Emily knew your little secret. Now, we will discuss this further inside," she says, and the car rolls to a halt, because it would not dare ruin her freakishly impeccable timing. How does she do it? How the hell?

Before Roy even lifts his handbrake, Miranda is out of the door and then I see her suddenly peering into my window.

She looks strange from this view-point, rather removed of herself. Maybe even harmless, with that tinted glass between us for protection. Of course she still looks utterly breathtaking and perfect and gorgeous and I still want to hold her in my arms and never ever let go, but I feel it a way that is not as overwhelmingly hopeless as usual. It makes me love her even more, my heart squeezes at the sight of my Miranda behind the glass.

She can't see me through it, and her eyes dart nervously about the pane while I sit behind in waiting.

I take in as much as I can, the flick of her eye, the little twitching dimples beneath her pursed mouth, the long silver earrings that pull against her earlobes. This this time i'm not struck by lust, I am blinded by affection.

But then she opens my door, and full-on power house Miranda Priestly in all her electrical storm is back and I lose my breath.

She patiently watches me carefully unfurl my limbs and stretch out of the car, feeling surprisingly secure on my feet. I nod at Miranda, she responds with a similar but more elegant tilt of the head, and I follow her to her front door.

– –

I've been transported to a parallel universe.

Miranda is still dressed in her Valentino, that wonderful dip beneath the fabric at the base of her spine still shows and the bodice remains tight and uncompromising against her skin, though her shoes had been kicked off the moment we entered the town-house, skidding wildly across the floor until they hit the bottom step with a clatter. Miranda did not flinch. Her dress drags on the floor and white fluffy slippers peek out from beneath it.

She elegantly shuffles about her kitchen, her ass still doing that madding rolling and swaying that got me into this mess in the first place, and I am making the most of it because, I figure, we are alone, and no one is looking at me looking.

_Alone._

Miranda is busy and we are alone and no one can see me staring at her beautiful body as I perch uncertainly on a leather barstool behind her. I feel awkwardly high up in comparison to Miranda. I just want to crawl onto the floor, be at her feet, let her stomp all over me.

She has turned now, quite suddenly to face me, but her eyes are focusing on a plate in her hand. It looks like... oh you've got to be kidding me. A grilled cheese sandwich. On a plate in her hand.

I stare open mouthed, and I think Miranda mistakes my shock for hunger, because she puts the plate in front of me and then after a pause, nudges it a little further in my direction, but I don't move.

She taps her fingers on her lip, a signal she is deep in thought, probably is about to cut me down with a viciously sweet insult. Whatever she says, I will savour it. I stare at the cheese and toast, I sit on my hands.

"Mmm," she mutters, and turns back around to give me another glimpse of her ass.

She's back with a bottle of ketchup now, which she places next to my grilled cheese sandwich. Her eyes go to my neck then my mouth and then back to the ketchup.

I have imagined a lot of things about her, and I mean _a lot_, really, but this? This was never on my radar. She pursed her lips as I stared at the plate. I think she is almost as disgusted with herself as I am shocked.

She drifts her fingers over her bangs and rests her hand on the back of her neck which, I admit, makes me feel a little nervous, because I can tell she is stressed about this. She is out of her comfort zone. But I also know that I would not be here if she did not want me to be here.

I have to keep reminding myself that if I am to remain at all sane. I am here because she chose for me to be here.

Miranda wants me here.

All right, I'm gonna take my mile. I don't care. Miranda _want__s _me. I know, I'm getting carried away but can you blame me?

"Well?" She says, and I immediately squirt a noisy squirt of ketchup onto my plate before taking a bite, because she clearly wants me to eat.

I want to eat too. This diet is not for me, but for her.

Now, I am well aware I am eating fatty food in front of Miranda Priestly in her own home and I should really show some restraint, but in my defence I have eaten nothing but cheese cubes for nine days (not counting the lasagne I accidentally inhaled four days ago) and just to have it melted, hot and oozing on a slice of thick and chewy whole-wheat bread is too good to be sensible with. My mouth is unashamedly crammed with liquid goodness and a hearty groan escapes from the back of my throat.

I know I said it was cheddar, but this cannot be cheddar. It's something expensive and unctuous, the kind of cheese you get wrapped in brown paper from men in straw hats. The kind that stretches to inappropriate proportions as I pull the toast away from my mouth.

I keep pulling away but it just keeps on stretching all the way back to my mouth. Oh this is not cheddar. What the hell is this stuff?

I beg for the strands to break but they just will not and I strain my eyes in Miranda's direction to gauge her reaction to this highly embarrassing, incredibly tasty situation, but her expression is inscrutable. Statuesque Miranda.

I leave one triangle of toast because, after all, I have to show some restraint. Also Miranda has been staring at me eating like it is something interesting and worthwhile, and that coupled with a stomach so full I feel like a bowling ball, leaves me feeling a little ridiculous.

Fat.

I want to crawl under the table, but there's no way in hell I could get away with it. Not with her so close.

"You want some?" I say. Her eyes jolt to the plate and she shakes her head but licks her lip.

"Ok. Is there anything I can do?"

"Anything you can do?" She looks at me sharply. "Andrea you really...no. No there is nothing." She looks back at the plate.

"Sure you don't want it?" Well hello again gun-barrel.

"Don't be ridiculous Andrea," Miranda replies with closed lids and high eyebrows, the typical dismissal.

But because I'm an idiot I continue, "It's really good. I mean, really really good. You're a great cook, you're just great." I know, it's a pathetic line, it's no banquet, it's grilled cheese, but I feel a fuzzy feeling in my tummy knowing that she has cooked for me and I can't help it.

She glares at me, well, at my mouth, and then somehow she is much closer to me than I ever remember her being before and her breath is on my skin just below my right eye. It is cooler than I had imagined it to be. I find myself wanting to taste it. This barstool is definitely too high.

"Do not lie to me. I know perfectly well what you think of me. Great is not the word." Her voice is dangerous, a deep midnight blue against my rainbow of emotion. "You must know I do not make a habit of taking assistants back to my town-house for midnight snacks. I am not that kind of person and this is not going to happen again." Miranda grits her teeth and forces air through her nose. "If I ever have to experience what I experienced this evening Andrea you will never see the inside of Runway again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly."

But this seems to make her more angry and her mouth twitches with it.

"You think what you did was a good idea? You think starving yourself would equip you to assist me competently?"

When she puts it like that...

"Or do you feel so in awe of that silly English girl that you do anything she says at all?"

"What? No, this has nothing to do with..."

"Tell me Andrea if she had asked you to dye your hair blonde or wear your ridiculous cerulean sweater tonight or flirt with my husband, would you? Would you have done anything at all for her?"

"No, not at all Miranda," and I want to explain, so much, but she hates explanations. She hates me, and this conversation is not heading in the direction I had wanted it to. Still, the anger in her face is addictive.

"No? So what, you couldn't possibly have decided starvation was a good idea purely because of one silly comment I made about your weight, so do not try to tell me otherwise. Do not attempt to make me feel any more guilt than..." She shakes her head. "No one listens to me. Not really. I am constantly disappointed by people like you who think they hear me, but they do not, and never have."

She closes her eyes. Her eyeshadow is a baby-pink, glittering and as subtle as a whisper.

"Do you have some special occasion you need to be particularly emaciated for? Or do you have your eye on a pretty dress that you cannot quite pour yourself into? Who are you wanting to look good for? Who is it that planted this most ridiculous idea inside your little head?"

I stumble over my words, she is angry and close and pink in the cheeks. It has been a while since I have bore the brunt of her anger like this, and I have become unaccustomed to it. Blood rushes to my head, I feel giddy.

"I don't know what you're getting at Miranda. I was just trying to be a better person, to fit in."

Miranda exhales a long, slow, cool breath and it buffers my cheek. I find myself wanting to inhale it again, it's impossible not to. I settle for taking a deep breath through my nose instead and wait for her reply.

"When you are done with your meal call a cab and go home. I want you out of my house."

That's when I really start to panic.

There is no way to describe the crushing and bubbling feeling inside of my chest as she turns away and starts to walk out of her own kitchen. A million thoughts and words scratch at my brain and it feels like I'm dangling off a cliff-face, sweaty-palmed, bloody-fingered, losing my grip. I have to tell her, anything to stop her walking away from me like that.

"You."

She stops in the doorway, her shoulders coil upwards and her fingertips tickle the air at her side.

"What did you say?"

"You. I did it for you. To be better for you."

My words come out like a whisper, though the house is impossibly silent so they carry easily to her ears. What remains of my snack now sweats with sympathy-nerves, the cheese is plastic and ugly on the plate and little droplets of fat pool at random on its surface.

"I guess I got that one wrong too."

"What?" She says again, much louder this time, and I look up to see her standing straight in front of me, and I blush. It burns my skin.

"You know what I said," I begin to slide off my seat, but she's in the way, so my hips end up just a few inches from hers. I'd be ecstatic if I thought she liked me even a little bit, but the look in her eye is one of pure rage. "I'll just call a cab. I'm so sorry to have ruined your evening."

I try to edge around her, but there is her soft hand on my wrist again and an arm around my waist again and I am pushed backwards and I never, ever want it to stop. But then my back comes into contact with the kitchen island and we both jolt at the intrusion.

"You're sorry? You've ruined more than my evening Andrea," she glowers, and I can only look at her hand on my wrist. It's perfect. "Sorry does not begin to cover it. But you have no idea, do you? The sweet innocent hard working girl with..." she's about to insult my appearance.

I try to pull my hand away but she pulls it back towards her, the pain that ensues when my arm twists between our bodies makes me gasp and look at her face, just to try and silently beg her to let me go, because suddenly her anger is turning to disappointment and I cannot have her disappointed, but then she presses her lips together like she is trying to filter out the insult. "You don't know a thing."

"Please. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. I'll do anything. Please. I messed up I know." I am as complacent as I can be though my heart is hammering and my stomach is lead.

Miranda emits a soft growl. "You will do a lot of things to satisfy me, of that I have no doubt, but I bet I could find something that even you draw a line at. You cannot keep second-guessing what I want and what I need, you cannot keep on trying to be someone else, someone slimmer," her hand tightens on my wrist, I thank the Gods above. "Some model-type with a skinny body who eats a cheese cube for lunch rather than corn chowder that you love."

She flicks her beautiful eyes down my body as quick as a butterfly, everywhere yet nowhere all at once.

This is what I want, I want to get at her and make her emotional so that I am not completely alone in this. I am done being alone.

"There will come a time when you will realise you've spent your life trying to please people with actions that you think will make them like you, but they only irritate them, they only frustrate them to no end, and you will realise that all of the little things that you do in order to keep in line are just one big lie, and you won't know until it's too late. Andrea, do the things you want, do not copy the aspirations of your peers. Go get what you want."

She loosens her grip on my wrist so it feels like she's cradling my hand instead. She is three inches shorter than me. She looks up into my eyes and her disappointment has been replaced with sadness that tells me this is as much about her as it is about me. She has rarely been this transparent.

I feel a flicker of power over her. It's fleeting, but it is strong. The shackles have been replaced, this time I am the keeper.

"Do you?"

Her lips purse and her thumb makes one solitary circle on my wrist."What?"

Yes, this is what I want, to have her reaction. I want to know what she does that makes her so perfect, how come she always gets it right.

"Do you have what you want? Are you truthful to yourself? I only did it for you, but of course I got it wrong. You never get it wrong Miranda, you're right every time. If I stop trying to please everyone and just do what I want, will I end up like you? Is that what you do, please yourself?"

Stupid, idiot, Champagne head. That alcohol, that Champagne I had drunk in eagerness to escape her beauty has arrived inside my head like a siren.

Then her hand is gone.

She has her back to me, facing instead the counter on which she prepared my meal. The reflection in the window above shows eyes closed tight, it looks like she's in pain, though I know she does not want me to comfort her, because there is (another) line I am in danger of crossing, and it's not my job to comfort her.

This is not my job.

She's already reminded me of that, in Paris. Do my job. Do what pleases her. Hear her. Please her. Listen and look and be intuitive. Be the best. Do not disappoint her. Do not be stupid. Make her happy.

I want her to know I do hear her, all of the time. I'm nothing like the other girls.

I walk behind her and place my hand on her elbow. She flinches like I'm toxic, and then she is facing me again and I walk her backwards so it's her back pressed against the kitchen counter instead of mine, her eyes wide and encompassing.

"Do not touch me," she hisses, but I ignore her demand.

"No."

"What did you say?"

Yeah, Andy, what the hell are you saying?

"No. Y-you told me to do what I want and not to do what I think is expected of me. You expect me to do my job. You expect me to cower, to call a cab, to leave you here. It's what you expect of me, isn't it?"

"It's what you must do. It's entirely different and has nothing at all to do with this situation." She shifts slightly, finding a more comfortable spot against the marble.

"It's exactly the same. Miranda, do you please yourself by being the way you are? I know you are kinder than you make yourself out to be. I know you."

She flusters. "You do not know the first thing about me."

A fleck of her spit hits my bottom lip and I almost faint, but the insult is there, it is much stronger than my desire and it hurts, that she thinks I don't know her at all, because I do, and I know she is lonely, and I know she's bluffing because I look her in the eye and see a frightened child staring right back at me.

"Try me," I say in my most confident voice.

She licks her lower lip in that way she does that makes me wet.

Whether I expect her to fire me, hit me, laugh in my face, cry, eat that little triangle of grilled cheese I didn't finish, I cannot say. I just want something more.

"Do what you want to do."


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you so much for your comments so far. Here is chapter 3.

I'm working very hard on Chapter 4 and will post as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'd love to know what you like and what you don't.

Enjoy x

* * *

"No," she starts in a voice so low it travels right to my toes.

"No?"

"Not...you have to stop this," Miranda huffs.

She's probably right. I keep doing this, and I have done it since I was little, and I have started to do it with Miranda too.

I keep every little unprofessional thought or personal opinion wrapped so very tight inside of me 99% of the time, just as we're taught from the moment we can talk by eager parents. I can't explain why, but just every so often a dollop of confidence hits me rather like a pie in the face, and I say things I shouldn't. And I tend to get away with it.

It started in Paris, when three hours and twenty two minutes after walking away from Miranda, I walked back.

I knocked on her door, she let me in, I sat on an over-stuffed chair as she stagnated by the window.

"I think what you did to Nigel was unfair," I said, and when she did not move or respond or even breathe, I continued. "But what I did was unfair too, and I apologise from the bottom of my heart. I hope you will forgive me. I am sorry Miranda."

For a while she remained a statue against the inky sky but then finally she turned, nodded, and I remained her assistant, though she barely spoke to me for the rest of the week.

Then two days after we returned from Paris, in between asking me to deal with the pickle smell in her car and reminding me to drop Cassidy off at her new cupcake making group just down the way from that restaurant with the Beluga caviar, she asked me to arrange dinner for her and Stephen at that place he likes with the eggs.

So apparently they were trying to make it work.

Later that day I found Miranda rolling her pen between her thumb and forefinger as she stared at a collection of black and white laminated photographs on her desk.

"He doesn't deserve you Miranda."

She stopped rolling the pen and was silent for so long I almost thought she hadn't heard me, but then she whispered, "do not expect me to respond to that."

I handed her a Starbucks.

One other time, Miranda had PMT. I wasn't supposed to know, but I did, because despite what she thinks I do know her. I do. Anyway it was late and she was pale and hunched unnaturally over her desk not doing any work at all.

"Why don't you go home early?"

She glared at me and clenched her jaw, so I ran back to my desk.

Ten minutes later, she stalked through. "Coat. Bag. Have Roy waiting."

"He's already outside Miranda."

And then last Tuesday I found her quite by accident in her office late at night peering into a pocket mirror, prodding her eyelid with one finger. When she saw me, she calmly placed the mirror on the table and cleared her throat.

"I...you look good. Better than any of the models in your magazine."

The shock only showed for a second or two. "Is that supposed to be an insult to Runway?"

"No. It's supposed to be a compliment to you."

"Oh," she replied, and then, and then, gave me a tiny smile. "That's all."

I practically skipped back to my desk.

And it continued here and there, me pushing my luck and Miranda not entirely minding, but the difference between those times and this time is that this time I am drunk, and this time I have quite possibly overshot the mark by a few hundred miles or so.

My problem is that I desperately, fervently want something more from her than what she gives to Emily or Serena or even Nigel. Any reaction will do, just as long as I maintain her attention. This is what it has all been about. Me wanting to _bother her. _To make her do things she would not usually do under usual circumstances, under working conditions, under the roof of Runway.

I want to affect her as a human being.

And now she is fluffing her hand and shaking her head like I am an employee. It's not that I have ever really thought I was anything else to her, but still the slash of disappointment is sharp against my bubble of hope.

I stare intently at her fluffy white slippers, just to try and not cry with regret, to try and remember that underneath all that make-up and underneath that very hot designer dress there hides a human being who cried when her husband asked for a divorce and laughed when her daughters dressed up as Christmas puddings, and in her own way she has just looked after me like human beings do, and this dismissal is merely a coping strategy. Instead of walking away, I remain where I am.

"All i'm asking is for you to be honest with me Miranda, nothing more. How can I make you happy if I don't know what you're thinking?"

She goes to say something, but stops herself and pushes me away with more force than I had expected. I do not try to stop her. She crosses to the table and picks up my plate, flicks it over the bin so the remainder of my meal falls into it, but she does not speak to me.

"Or would you just prefer for me to leave?"

She turns to the sink and begins to frantically scrub at the plate, rubbing soft white bubbles around and around and around its surface.

"As of two weeks on Monday, you will be first assistant. Tell Emily. Tell Human Resources. My God eat something once in a while and never, ever, speak to me as you have done tonight. I will not allow it. Not anymore."

"I- I'm not fired?" I just want to be absolutely sure i've heard this right, because I can't have heard this right.

"I find you rude and inconsiderate. The way you carry on when we're alone, thinking you're getting away with it. If it were not for the inkling of courage which you have just displayed with all the aplomb of a kitten in a hurricane, you can be rest assured it would have been Emily picking up the phone to Human Resources and not you, so do not think you are at all cozy in your position. Do not assume what you have done has endeared me to you, you will not get a second chance at this."

Then she stops circling the sponge around the plate and slams it in the sink. "That being said, whilst your honesty is at times vulgar, it is refreshing. On top of that I find you... useful. Despite your ridiculous need to..." She stops, leans against the counter and bows her head over the sink.

"Miranda you can't fire Emily. It was my choice, please don't take this out on her. She adores you. Runway is her life."

Miranda barks out an ironic laugh. "She made you starve yourself, actively encouraged it no doubt, why on earth would she do that. As for you, you have become far too personal for your own good. Must I have two assistants who have entirely bypassed the common sense gene? No, I think not." She dries her hands on a towel. "You are more useful than she is. Do not think this goes any deeper than that. You are useful to me, Emily is merely... adequate."

Oh yes, I am useful to Miranda. Oh yes, Miranda finds me useful and Emily is merely adequate and Miranda wants me more than she wants her.

Miranda has turned, though is not looking me in the eye and misses my internal party for one. "Do you know why I kept you after your pathetic little stunt in Paris?"

"N-no."

In fact we'd never spoken about it at all, and all of this is so very new. I look to her for guidance, she remains attached to the kitchen counter like it's a life raft, and I am bobbing about in the middle of the ocean with nothing to grasp but my own desperation.

A predatory smile slices through her face. "I had never expected you to accept my offer of a job in the first place. I did it to amuse my curiosity, satisfy by boredom. The previous girls had been placid though stylish, but you were neither of those things. When Emily came back with you dutifully in tow..." She shakes her head of the memory. "But you did accept my offer, and you were really, really incompetent Andrea. I have never seen somebody so unprepared and so naïve. Honestly is was as though you dressed in the dark. And then you got better, not just in your sense of fashion but in other areas too, areas that made you an adequate assistant, and in a moment of desperation I took you to Paris."

She takes a breath that reaches all the way down to her stomach. I don't like the words she is using. Desperation, incompetent, boredom, unprepared and naïve. They carve chunks out of my confidence.

"In Paris you stood up to me which showed courage, then you turned away which showed dignity, and you," her Adam's Apple catches in her throat, "came back. You came back to us and that showed a humility above and beyond what I had ever expected. You are as unexpected now as you were then. I had not expected to be affected by all of this, my assistant for goodness sake. Nobody else surprises me in the way you do, and I suppose that's why I am choosing to keep you rather than fire you."

"I see," I whisper, and I am overcome by sadness. I'm sad because, suddenly, I see that I am there for her amusement and I am not there for her comfort. "I thought I was useful."

"You and a million other girls I am sure," she flicks her hand at me. "The fact remains you are more useful and you...you are more intriguing to me. But no more chances Andrea."

So this is it, the reason why I have been getting away with saying the things I have is because I satisfy her boredom. I am a chess-piece. I am also done with this.

Of course all of the alcohol I had poured into me has suddenly found a little hole at the bottom of my bucket and it seeps quite rapidly away, leaving me sober and so very tired.

I have been stupid. I have turned myself into the antithesis of the smart, fat girl. But it's not at all what I expected. I want to go back to being smart and fat, how did I ever want this any other way?

I somehow find myself in the hallway where Miranda's shoes lay strewn across the floor. I pick them up, walk to the closet, open the door, and place them next to the wellington boots, of which there are four pairs. Back in the hallway, I rest my palm against the front door to steady myself.

"Wait."

But i'm too tired for this, Miranda must see that I can't wait anymore. I turn to her anyway, head lolling on my weak neck like a pom pom, and Miranda is shuffling angry towards me in her slippers with a face full of conviction and fists tight with determination.

There it is, the overwhelming desire to take her in my arms and love her until she smiles a real smile.

She doesn't get so close this time, she sort of stops short of where she intended to be.

"I have to go Miranda."

"Have Roy pick you up."

"Miranda he's gone home."

"Yes," she agrees. "Call him." Her hands are on her hips, faking business.

"No."

"Excuse me?" Her eyes narrow, they do not frighten me.

"I'm too tired for this," I mutter it to myself but of course she heard, why would she not, and her laugh is wicked and light. I want to stop it with my mouth.

"You're tired Andrea? Well then perhaps you'd like to trade places?"

"N-Not particularly. I'll call a cab if..." I bite my lips together at her plastic smile.

"Why not?" She sings. Never, ever a good sign. Not in Miranda-land. "Because it's so easy and fun to have an assistant who is forever running away like like a little bunny rabbit at the first sign of anything remotely resembling a personal dilemma, only to have her come running right back when she realises that she didn't mean it and is ever so sorry. It's so pleasant to have her ruin not only your dress but also your entire evening, and for her then to insult you in your own home when you make an attempt at...at companionship. It's all just very good and energising, everybody wants this Andrea. You really should think twice about declining my offer of an out-of-body experience."

She's gone pink. Why is she...oh. Oh.

I stare at her neck and collarbone and cleavage and face and ears, all rippled in pink like something...something pink and ripply.

"Call Roy." She repeats, it's softer, a glimpse of fragility.

But I don't want Roy to be any part of this. I'd rather walk home than be subjected to his sympathetic glare. Worse still if he gives me an understanding nod. Instead, I want to snuggle with my boss in her bed and have her stroke my hair in the way that Nate never did. Hah.

I want her to carry on talking about out-of-body experiences.

"I'll call a cab. Just please understand that I am sorry. I've disappointed you so badly. I'm sorry i've ruined your evening and your gown, i'm sorry I can't be the person you want me to be." I tell her.

"You're so wrong." She shakes her head.

"No, i'm not wrong, i'm a game to you. But you know, that's okay, that's..."

She takes a step forward and leans her head towards me. Then, her cool mouth presses against the corner of my own.

It's a steady, confident pressure. Completely comforting and utterly terrifying. Every single inch of my body thrums with giddy apprehension, this is not what I had planned for at all, but that is her mouth on mine and our lips are are pressing together as though it's right.

I focus on the certain pressure, her chemical taste, how her nose presses into my cheek and it's like I have arrived home for the very first time, like I am loved.

Right here, this is perfect.

I cannot fathom what I have done to deserve such luck, I am certain she hates me at this very moment and I know she thinks me ridiculous.

My brain is scrabbling away, intent on ruining this before I have even have chance to understand what is happening, and I think about the person in front of me. My boss, my impressive, powerful and frightening boss, how she holds my life in her hands, how I have disappointed her and how she is kissing me just because she is curious, and my legs give way.

Her arm comes around my waist to support me, but she stops the kiss.

"Oh. I should not have done that, you-you should not have said that. You shouldn't," she whispers and presses her nose to my neck whilst pushing her spare palm hard against my torso.

"I should not have brought you here. I should not have fed you. I should..." she continues her journey down my jaw-line, to the centre of my chin. "...have left you with Nigel and had him call you a cab. I should not have fed you in my car. That damn Champagne."

My words fail me because as I fix her with my most confident look and force myself not to touch my mouth with the pads of my fingers, she heaves a breath out of her lungs like she's been winded. She looks beaten.

She looks like she did in Paris that time, only this time she's still covered in expensive make-up, but it does not mask the defeat in her eyes. This time, it's because of me.

I don't know how or why, but I have caused this. She didn't want to kiss me and she... this look that I wanted so desperately to vanquish in Paris is back and this time I am completely to blame. I take a step back and her hand that had been resting on my stomach falls to her side, and I feel once again like I am about to faint.

"Please don't look like that, please, Miranda I never meant to upset you."

"This is ridiculous. This needs to stop." She wipes a manicured finger over her brow.

"Stop what Miranda?"

I know she's as dislodged as I am when she actually goes to answer my question.

"You need to stop starving yourself to reach an unattainable goal for one thing. What exactly had you expected when you began depriving yourself of the basic nutrition a body needs in order to function. You are silly, childish and thoughtless not to have even considered what affect this would have on Runway. I will not have you pasty and limp when you spend so much of your time loafing around next to me." She takes a breath in remembrance, and then continues more softly. "You get in photographs, Andrea. I cannot have you looking like you're about to drop dead."

But this isn't about Runway and how I look for Runway, this is about her. "I didn't think. I'm sorry." Please just kiss me again.

"Oh well if you're _sorry _then it's all perfect isn't it? Oh, no, it's not. You're sorry when you order me a steak so overcooked I could use it as a paperweight, you're sorry when you forget to turn off the light in my closet and make me think you're hiding in there like some urchin, you're _sorry_ when you forget that I take a scotch after lunch with Irv."

"Please, this is killing me." I beg, my eyes are like lead. "You're killing me."

Miranda takes a step backwards, stumbles, clutches her fists together. "I'm killing you?" She is breathless and tragic. "Andrea look at me, do I look like I'm in the right state of mind to kill? I doubt I could even defend myself if you came at my throat with a knife. I'd just let you slice right into me and, oh, wouldn't you be celebrated by all the people I've fired or pursed my lips at for slaying the dragon. Wouldn't you feel good about that."

Her eyes dance about my face. I hope she sees my love.

"They would love you. You said so yourself, that you're sorry you're not a better person. And that's what you want, isn't it? To be loved by everybody?"

"No."

"That's not what it looks like. So desperate to be good and thin and efficient."

"I just want that from you."

She is shaking her head in a slow, disbelieving rhythm. "You're going to regret saying that."

"I'm not." I look her in the eye and two pinching hands propel me backwards. My back hits the front door.


	4. Chapter 4

Nice and quick, part 4. Posted early in celebration of how hot Meryl looked at the Golden Globes this weekend.

As I have explained this is a second draft of my first rather hastily written fanfic. There is only so much a new set of clothes can do to a body, so I can't see this continuing for more than a chapter or two. I am aware it is lacking somewhat.

All mistakes are mine and I own absolutely nothing.

Honest reviews are most welcome.

* * *

If her hands are not sufficient enough to keep me pinned against her door, her unwavering stabby glare that pierces me in all my delicate areas is. I try so hard to give as good as I'm getting, because I don't want her to be under any misguided impression that I don't want this.

The heavy prominence of this moment rests like a brick in my chest. Although she has just pushed me backwards with all the force of a freight train, Miranda is now resolutely still, as though waiting for me to make a move. Her breath fills her whole body, her shoulders heave mannishly despite their infinite fragility.

Miranda is on the cusp of an emotion I cannot depict, though I know if I break eye contact she will drop me straight to the floor and shimmy away to the kitchen with her fluffy white slippers, muttering a soft dismissal as she went, and all of this will be forgotten.

Miranda is good at forgetting the things that matter.

So I frown and she raises her brow and I lick my lip and she purses hers, but she keeps on staring me right in the eye.

I have witnessed that look on her face a million times before, it's there behind the defeat, a challenge for me to provide her with explanation as to why this is happening, along with an efficient summary of what should be done to fix it.

Though I would never consider it a cry for help, her silent request wells up behind her eyes to make them turn glassy, and I panic that she might be about to cry, and then I will definitely be fired.

She wants me to speak, but I have no idea why this is happening, why she kissed me, why she even cushioned my fall in the ballroom in the first place, and so my chances at getting this right boil down to pure guesswork.

I'm stalling, but that mouth does not look like it's about to move, so I take my chance. I tell her what I want.

"Please." I flick my eyes to her mouth.

And there again, her viscous and delicious mouth on mine.

It's square-on this time, leaving no opportunity for us to claim it an embarrassing failure of co-ordination, this is definitely a kiss of magnificent beauty. It is expressed with a greater force than before that traps me fast against the front door, and although my stupid knees give way again, my position prevents me from falling and this time I place both of my hands on her hips to keep her close. You live and learn.

Miranda moans and pinches my shoulders whilst her mouth grates against mine in perfect chaos, despite the brief clash of noses which we both choose to ignore, I could not hope for anything more than this.

My fingers twitch against her dress and she inhales through her nose, the sound shoots straight through me and I push my mouth harder against hers. It's powerful and unyielding, but it is Miranda and it is her mouth, and it is her that initiated this, and so I focus on the minor discomfort and try to capture every sensation she carves into me.

Her hands provoke my sensitive skin as she grates them around my neck before stilling, her thumbs press against my collarbone and I feel light headed.

There is definitely a flutter of nerves now, a slight uncertainty of whether she is in fact planning to kill me, and whether it would be all that tragic to die whilst the mouth of the woman I love is on my own.

I am vulnerable. She could strangle me if she wanted. I don't think I have the ability to stop her.

I feel her trembling now that she is on more delicate skin, though her pressure remains steadfast on my neck and on my mouth.

_Do what you want. Do what you want, _I ask her only in my head, because there's no way I'm going to risk speaking out loud. If I do that she's going to stop kissing me, because she'll realise this is a ridiculous idea, because I'm stupid and I'm a coward and I am just her employee and she has a husband with whom she is trying to make it work.

Stephen.

No. The feeling of wrong is sharp, unpleasant but indisputable. I cannot ignore it.

I turn my head sharply to the left, her mouth follows as far as it can before dragging across my check and away, leaving me colder than I have ever felt in my entire life.

Once when I was little I got locked out of my own home during a blizzard. Something to do with my sister and a key and a snowball fight down the way. Anyway, I had lost my gloves at school, and I sat on our step for a whole lifetime before my father came home and took me inside to defrost. My fingers wouldn't move when I tried to unbutton my coat and I thought i'd be stuck like that, star-fish shaped in my new coat and boots in the middle of the living room forever.

And now, now the feeling repeats itself. I can barely move, I hurt with a regret so profound I find it hard to breathe, my fingers are petrified in two star-fish shapes against her hips and Miranda is pressing her chest into mine like it's _me _who is keeping _her_ upright.

"What is it?" She breathes.

"We can't." I shake my head just a little, because I can't do anything else with her so close and so on me like she is, and the feeling of being an ice-cube has not waned.

"Why?"

Her hand comes up to the left side of my head and she yanks me in her direction, so I am facing her, but I do not react at all, not even when she leans her mouth on mine again, not even when she makes a noise that I had only ever heard before in my dreams.

My thinking time is severely restricted, but I'm supposed to be good at fixing disasters, and I'm supposed to know what to do when it all goes wrong, like now.

Like when I am in love with a married woman who is married but is kissing me anyway.

So here is my plan: Let her get on with it.

I will not move and I will not push her away. I will wait for her to step away and then I will leave the town-house.

I plan to do this, rather than push her away right this very second, because I will never experience this sort of crescendo of feeling ever again, and although it's wrong it is also full and it's lightning in my veins, it is stronger than my morals, and that will remain the case until she lets me go, when I will get a grip.

I will.

I'll be able to walk away when she stops pressing her mouth on mine.

But this isn't just kissing, we are communicating a desire, it's an impression. This is unlike any Kiss Nate ever gave me, it feels suspiciously like forever, like I could just stand here and do this for the rest of my life. I can't imagine it ever stopping.

It feels right and urgent, like she's actually wanted to do this for a long time, like she can't hold back, and that feeling swells inside me like sweet and sticky and soft marshmallow, and it is all for me.

I don't know how I ever got so lucky, and even though i'm probably fired and even though I probably will be blacklisted, it doesn't prevent me from wanting this with all of my heart.

This kiss is going to cause me a lot of problems in the future.

I can see it even now, looming over me like my very own marshmallow-shaped rain cloud during every interview and every first date from here on in.

I can imagine it keeping me awake at night and when I fall asleep it will be in my dreams too.

In my dreams Miranda had the ability to kiss me tenderly, and I wonder now whether she is actually capable of doing anything without full on conviction and determination. Maybe I need to re-do my fantasies. Her mouth is hard and bruising.

I will fix this, and I will survive this. Nobody died from a kiss, right? Right.

Her hand is still on my face and our bodies are knitted from nose to knees. Whilst I'm no expert in this particular type of kiss, it doesn't feel like I'm going to be released anytime soon. My head is starting to swim. Our breathing is laboured, and there is her dress getting wrinkled, and there is her husband to think of. Her children. Family.

I can't believe I'm thinking what I'm thinking. I am such an idiot.

"Um, Miranda?"

"Why?" she mumbles back, still pressing into my mouth.

I place my hands on her shoulders and firmly pull her away and, oh, the look on her face is just...indescribable.

"You don't want this."

There's the Paris look again. No, no, no.

"No, no Miranda. No, that's not the point." No, I do, I do.

"You don't," she grits through her teeth as she begins to claw her nails into my cheek. "Is this a game?"

"Stephen."

Her hand is gone from my cheek and it now rests on her stomach as it had done on mine not half an hour ago.

"Stephen?" She says his name like he's a stranger.

"Stephen," I repeat in the absence of anything else that could more clearly convey the reasons why she should not be kissing me. I consider mentioning her children too, but I don't like the thought of what that would do to her.

Her eyes have turned glassy and wide, her face has paled and her mouth, her mouth with our mixed lipstick on, is open and her tongue is wet and thrumming.

I can't believe she fed me a cheese cube. Oh my God.

"My God Andrea, you're..." She inhales deeply and I wait for whatever is going to happen next. "We're not together."

So, she does remember him. At least that's one point taken care of. Now, as for them not being together..."But you are Miranda," I fumble, grasping a sentence that is clear enough without making her sound like an idiot. "You asked me to book you that table with the eggs, and there's four pairs of Wellington boots, and at the party you were asking after him..."

Nothing. Her face is blank. I mean, really, surely she can't have forgotten she's married. She's still wearing her wedding ring, I heard it chinking whilst...no.

No she isn't.

I check both hands, just to be sure, but no. Perfect and bare. No ring.

It was definitely on her hand earlier, I heard it chinking against her champagne flute as she created a fake smile for Irv whilst I was stood behind her trying not to stare at the ass I've still not touched.

Wow do I regret not doing that while I had the opportunity. Would she let me touch her ass now? Could I get away with running my hand over her and holding her to me and have her thrust herself into me? Would she grind herself into my body like I turn her on? Will I...Stephen. Right.

Miranda shakes her head like she did when I conquered Harry Potter. "Darling."

Wow.

Stephen.

Goddam him, but, fucking wow.

Her eyes glint with a fondness I've only ever seen when she speaks about her girls and I can't decide whether I want that to be for me or for him.

Either way, I'm fucked.

"Darling, it's all a show. I guarantee you we are not together. It's just until we decide how best to tell the girls." Her words are fast and tumbling like a brick wall right towards my head.

"So, when you asked for that table with the eggs..."

"For the girls. For them to see us together and for them to be happy. Same for tonight, for the press. He barely comes home anymore and when he does he's drunk and abusive and tells me I'm... he sleeps in the spare room." She fluffs her hand in the direction of the stairs. "The papers for the...ah.. .they are in the bedside table. You can check, you can..."

I can kiss her. I pull her to me and plant my mouth on hers, and this time it is her knees that let her down and not my own. I wrap a tight arm around her waist and try not to squeal.

"Please believe me," she whispers as she beats her fingertips into my hips.

"I believe you."

I'm not entirely sure that's true, but under the circumstances I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Good," she replies, "that's good." And her kiss is suddenly softer, like in my dream, it strokes my mouth. Her tongue trips over my bottom lip. "I've wanted you for a long time."

"Since Paris?" I squeak.

"Since Paris," she drawls.

"And before?" I take a risk, knowing her mood is as permanent as smoke.

"Does it matter?"

No, not right at this particular moment. Right now what matters are her hands, because they seem to have negotiated themselves underneath my dress and are presently stroking against the stitching of the panties I stole from the closet.


	5. Chapter 5

All mistakes are mine.

I am really interested in hearing what you think of this, please be honest!

There is a part 6 in my head but honestly I don't know if I can write it so I have marked this as complete. I feel quite fed up about this fic, like I have not done it justice. Anyway, Part 6 may come, it may not.

Enjoy.

* * *

"Please Miranda."

To my delight her mouth twitches to a victorious smile. "You really want this?" she asks. "You want me to do this to you?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Her fingers, which up until now have been rolling down the flick of lace that edges my panties, pause at my question. I buck my hips in protest, but she doesn't seem to notice.

"Not to me."

I splay my fingers on her lower back, she stiffens. Removes her hand from beneath my skirt. She curls her arm around to grasp my wrist, removes my hand from her back, before pressing my hand to the door, then puts her hand back under my dress but only goes as high as my thigh before she pauses.

So, despite all of this, I consider that maybe Miranda doesn't entirely believe that I want her like I want air, and I consider that it may be a good idea if I should show her just how much I want it.

I doubt I can say it in words, how deep my need for her goes, so I reach to take her hand in mine and when I press it through the elastic of my underwear I miss her reaction, because my eyes have closed on their own volition at the sensation of her fingertips against wet skin.

I weep over how I missed the look on her face, but there are her fingertips just on the junction where my leg meets my sex and there is my head, gone up and above us both, somewhere magical and beautiful where we both want this in equal measure and there are no husbands and no contracts and no champagne heads.

Oh, and there is her hand moving further towards...she traces my labia with one slow finger. My head rolls backwards to clunk loudly against the door.

Her hand stills.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Don't stop." I rock my hips into her palm.

"You sure you're all right?"

"Miranda please."

"That must have hurt."

I wrench my eyes open, I don't think she expected it because she short jolts, but before she can turn and flick her and dismiss me, I grab her hand again and thrust her palm against my sex. I manage to hold her gaze this time, despite her palm being on me and against me, and there she is squeezing me and kneading me.

She licks her lip and I respond by kissing her with all of the love I can muster.

"Doesn't hurt."

So here we are in a parallel universe disguised as Miranda's hallway where we she is pressing and touching me like we were born to do it.

"I can't believe what I'm doing," Miranda whispers. "Andrea Sachs of all people."

I want this to last forever, I angle my leg to allow her better contact and then she uses two fingers to trace me under my panties. "Miranda."

"This cannot be happening."

What? Why can't it be happening? But Miranda has just pressed two soft fingers into me with such force my head slams against the door yet again. This time I curl one leg around her waist so she doesn't stop to ask after my wellbeing.

"I knew you would feel good." Miranda curls a finger. "Let me see it."

She thrusts once, twice, three times into me and each time her palm hits my clit.

It is quick and aggressive, I want her to slow down. Hadn't she said we were alone, did she have another event to attend that I was not aware of? Surely she's not planning to go back to her husband after this, sham marriage or no, I could not stand it.

Judging by the way she is frantically crushing her hand against me, a dawning realisation comes over me, that she's late for something. That I am making her late for something that does not involve me.

"Do it. Do it for me."

And then it all falls away, the pressure in my head, under my skin, sparks and shoots out from my mouth when I come fantastically on her hand.

I cannot see anything ever surpassing this moment.

I squeeze her fingers just to try and keep her inside me for a little while longer whilst I catalogue the feeling along with the thousands of others I have added to my scrapbook of experiences I had never hoped to experience tonight.

The way we're panting out of time means that our bodies are rocking back and forth against each other awkwardly and yes, there is Miranda who has yet to come, and I will attempt to give her the best orgasm of her life in just a minute if she would only allow me to hold her in my arms for a few more seconds and pretend that this goes beyond fucking.

Her mouth is close to mine again and she is trying to catch my eye as we find a common rhythm on which to pace our breathing.

"I want to," she places a polite kiss on my mouth, "here," she twitches her fingers inside of me.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Andrea I cannot speak for you, but I for one do not kid," she kisses my chin. "Particularly when we've had so many misunderstandings shot back and forth between us over God knows how many months. I think kidding you in any shape or form at this moment would not only be foolish but extremely time consuming and I am not one to revel in wasting time in any capacity, particularly when I have you up against the door as wet as you are. Not only can I feel exactly what I want, I can smell it too. I can actually smell your desire for this."

She takes a breath as I try to figure out what she's saying, and exactly how deep she is, but I can't wrap my head around it at all, and she continues.

"I would never offer you any kind of flippant personal comment again after you've shown me what it can do to you. From now on, we say what we mean."

Miranda pins her hips against mine. I try to garner a semblance of concern for her hand that is squashed awkwardly between us, but it feels too good, so I can't.

And then she says, "You are not fat, you have never been fat. You are very smart. You are beautiful. I Fantasize about you all of the time. I want you to come on my tongue Andrea."

But I don't. I push her backwards and she goes uncertainly, unsteadily, to fall back against the door of the closet.

"Oh. No Andrea." She pushes at my shoulders but I am stronger than her.

This is my fantasy, and I am going to take it.

Miranda's fluffy slippers tickle my knees as I kneel on the floor and shove her dress up around her waist.

"I…I don't want you to do that to me." Her voice is rough and angry. " This is not what…"

"Hold this," I demand and, low and behold, she takes hold of the hem of her dress.

"I said no."

That marvellous show of willing is nothing compared to the sight of milky thighs that flash above the tops of stockings before being concealed again by rich black lace panties.

Huh, told you she was too proper to go panty-less. I'm glad.

I rake my tongue over her whilst she makes rude noises above me.

I want to take my time over this, but her spare hand is tied in my hair and she is pulling my head into her as she bucks and thrusts and growls and, before I even feel her naked sex on my tongue, she is coming like thunder.

I can barely breathe, so I listen to her own strident breaths in absence of my own.

"I said no." Miranda's voice is quiet and sad. "Didn't you hear me?"

I know as she disentangles her fingers from my hair and kicks her leg against my thigh that I might never get to taste her unobstructed by underwear, or have her do the same for me, because she is frowning and not looking me in the eye.

Did she say _no?_

She is furious. She is going to push me away. This, having her like this, is over. I have somehow messed this up.

"I thought you wanted me to…"

Her eyes are darts. "I said no such thing."

I shouldn't feel cheated, but I do, and I mourn for all the impossible moments with Miranda that I will never experience as she fixes her hair and fixes me with a glare that would be intimidating if it wasn't focused on my mouth.

"I'm sorry Miranda. I thought you wanted me to…"

"I didn't. I don't want to talk about it," she replies, but we're both smelling of sex and wet between the thighs so it seems to be a perfect time to get the rest of it out in the open too. "Shit."

"Miranda I want…"

"You can take the spare room for tonight. You can use anything you wish but please call a cab first thing tomorrow morning. Do not have Roy collect you. This," she turns towards the kitchen so that I can't see what she is thinking, " I trust you not to be under any illusions. I never asked you to do that to me. I did not ask that of you, do you understand?" It sounds like she is about to cry.

"I know," I reply, but she flicks her hands to silence me.

"We will talk about this, but not now, not tomorrow. Just please try to keep your mouth shut Andrea, until we can talk about this sensibly. It seems we have crossed…"

"I wouldn't dare tell anyone else."

She spins around, eyes flood with tears. "I do not doubt that. Use the kitchen as you wish for breakfast but I want you gone before six, I do not want to see you in the morning all musty and sleepy at the breakfast table, looking like..."

I'm sure she finishes her sentence, but the front door has just closed behind me and I can no longer hear her above the whirring of late night traffic outside her door. The night is bitterly cold, I hadn't noticed before now.


End file.
